Marietje Schaake, author. − Mr President, where to start? The nuclear dossier dominates our political agendas and campaign rhetoric, but let us never forget the ongoing human rights violations in Iran. These are always important, but especially with regard to the upcoming elections in spring of next year. With opposition candidates in de facto imprisonment, the ongoing crackdown on citizens, women’s rights, free speech, media online and offline, torture and rape in prisons and the execution rate higher than it has ever been – higher than in China – including juveniles, the situation is very, very dire.

In light of all these atrocities, we may wonder what we can do to help the brave Iranians. The future of Iran lies in the hands of the Iranian people and I am confident that they will prevail, but even with EU and UN sanctions in place, EU-based ICT companies continue to provide spyware, surveillance, monitoring, tracking and tracing technologies and know-how to those in power in Iran.

We must end the facilitation of censorship, the hampering of press freedom and access to information, and the crackdown on people facilitated by EU-based companies. Dual use regulations are not enough: we need EU-wide standards, licensing before trade and, most importantly, mechanisms to forge transparency and accountability to ensure that EU-based ICT companies do not undermine the EU’s strategic interests and, most importantly, the human rights of Iranian people.

Anneli Jäätteenmäki, on behalf of the ALDE Group. – Mr President, here we are once again discussing the human rights situation and violations in Iran. This seems to be a never-ending, or at least a recurring, theme of our urgency debates. The people of Iran deserve human rights, democracy and freedom. However, human rights activists and civil rights activist are being detained, judicial processes fall far short of EU and European standards, women’s rights are not respected, and the principle of freedom of expression is violated on a daily basis.

I am particularly appalled by the fact that, to date, 42 lawyers have been arrested and prosecuted for their attempts to provide legal help to political prisoners and activists. The Arab Spring has shown that people’s striving for human rights and true freedom is deeply rooted. Those rights should not be compromised. Eventually, the Iranian people will, I am sure, raise their voice for the human and civil rights they deserve. In the meantime the EU shall – and should – keep the question high on its agenda.

Paul Murphy, on behalf of the GUE/NGL Group. – Mr President, it is a real testament to the bravery of ordinary people in Iran that, despite the massive oppression they are faced with, despite the executions, despite the torture, despite the jailings, there have still been mass popular movements of discontent over the past years in Iran.

Recently there has been an upsurge in workers’ struggles, as workers have been fighting to form independent trade unions that can really represent their interests.

Massive strike waves amongst the Teheran bus workers, in the sugar cane industry, amongst teachers, in the petrochemical complexes in Bandar have all been met by brutal crackdowns by the regime, including the hanging of a teacher in the last year and the arrest of many many workers.

However, the gross violations of human rights that are perpetrated by the dictatorship in Iran, and this resolution that we will pass today in Parliament, must not be used as a pretext by European leaders to engage in military action or support military action or to impose sanctions that will simply harm the people of Iran.

Instead the trade union and workers’ movement must increase its efforts to highlight the abuses of human rights, the abuses of workers’ rights in Iran, and to support the struggles of working people, young people, poor people, to achieve fundamental change within Iran.

Seán Kelly (PPE). - Mr President, when it comes to Iran one is inclined to despair; human rights and Iran are as far a part as one end of the ocean is from the other. There are hundreds of examples, the Nadarkhani case being the particular one we are highlighting today: a man arrested and in danger of being executed, possibly at any minute, for a charge called apostasy of religion. It seems that in Iran the policy is one state, one religion.

Anybody who does not embrace Islam is in danger of being executed or arrested or whatever at any particular time; whether they are male or female, young or old it does not seem to matter. Iran is up there with China in terms of the number of executions per annum; around 300 and many of them actually taking place in secret. This is despite the fact that Iran is party to international conventions and covenants which guarantee human rights. I think that it is time we took firmer action as an EU institution to highlight this and support the people of Iran in their struggle.

Michael Cashman (S&D). - Mr President, I welcome this resolution but I want to make one correction. Iran is not an Islamic republic: it is a brutal dictatorship that uses and abuses and perverts religion for its own barbaric ends. This dictatorship also targets and persecutes people who are Muslim as well as other religions. We have stood by and we have watched people hung by their neck, young men of 18 hung by their neck solely because they were homosexual. And still they target homosexuals and transgender people, and deny them access to health, goods, services, housing, education. But I am optimistic, because despite these crackdowns, despite this brutality, men and women continually rise up against this regime, and their hope should give us hope and our voices must speak for them.

Peter Skinner (S&D). - Mr President, we as Europeans have a responsibility to stop the export of any technology which is being used to oppress anyone in the world, but particularly in Iran. Whether it is spyware or other technology or other software, if we can track its source and can track it to Europe, then we must take action to stop it.

We will not see large-scale shootings in the streets like we have seen in Libya or Syria. The regime in Iran is too cunning to expose its brutality in this way. The state security apparatus is one of the most effective and cruel in its abuse of the people. Therefore, allowing any form of assistance, even if it appears neutral – such as technology to track protestors – is simply going to make us all complicit in their repression.

Maria Damanaki, Member of the Commission. − Mr President, on behalf of the High Representative and the Commission as a whole, I welcome this resolution.

I would like to stress that the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran is dreadful and is deteriorating. Abuses committed by the Iranian authorities are harming more and more individuals and organisations and worsening the climate of fear and suspicion.

Iran continues to ignore its international obligations and its people have nowhere to turn. Frequent arrests of human rights defenders and lawyers, the interruptions of Internet and the interceptions of mobile phone communications, the situation of religious minorities, the continued house arrest of political leaders and the extremely high number of executions are sad and striking illustrations of this trend.

A lot of you referred to some special cases, so let me also give you some information.

Referring to the Christian pastor, Youcef Nadarkhani, we are on the same line as Parliament. Iran must live up to its international human rights obligations, also on freedom of religion. The High Representative has publicly called on Iran to release Mr Nadarkhani and drop the apostasy charges against him, and is following this case closely.

We are also on your side and have condemned publicly the detention and sentencing of prominent film-makers and artists you have referred to: Jafar Panahi and Mrs Vafamehr. We welcome the release of Mrs Vafamehr, but remain very concerned at the targeting of the artistic community which threatens the expression of artistic freedom.

We agree with your call on Iran to put a moratorium on the death penalty and to help all pending cases. An issue of particular concern is the execution of juvenile offenders, as happened last September. This is really appalling.

The European Union is therefore actively working on trying to improve the human rights situation in Iran. Let me give you some examples of our actions.

We use public diplomacy: the impressive number of public statements this year on human rights in Iran reflects the gravity of the situation. Nothing more or less than that. In order to reach out to an Iranian public, the statements are translated into Farsi and posted on the web with alerts from the High Representative via Twitter.

The United Nations’ General Assembly will this year again consider a resolution on human rights in Iran, which enjoys full EU backing. We also want access to Iran for the United Nations special rapporteur, Dr Shaheed, whose mandate was created at our initiative.

In April and in October this year, EU Foreign Ministers adopted the list of 61 Iranian individuals responsible for great human rights violations. So we are not going against the Iranian people, we are going against Iranian individuals. Their assets in the EU are frozen and they cannot travel here.

In parallel to the sanctions, we have let Iran know that we are open for contacts on human rights.

Let me finish by saying that there is unfortunately no country in the world that receives as much attention on human rights from the EU as Iran does. This House should have no doubt about our determination to do what we can to promote and protect human rights in Iran. I know the European Parliament shares this extreme concern and I thank you for that.